Launch scrubbed at Wallops Island

The long-anticipated launch of the Antares rocket out of NASA Wallops was scrubbed minutes from countdown Wednesday after an umbilical cord between the rocket and the launch pad prematurely detached.

Orbital Sciences Corp., the Dulles-based space transportation firm that developed the Antares, announced on NASA.gov late Wednesday that the next attempt for the biggest rocket ever to be launched out of Wallops since it was established in 1945, is set for Friday.

"It's a little bit of a disappointment," said Barron Beneski, spokesman for Orbital Sciences Corp. "We weren't working any issues on the rocket. We weren't working any issues on the pad."

He said strong winds earlier in the day — 15 to 20 knots — could be to blame.

Orbital's 135-foot Antares is significant not just for its size, but for its anticipated mission to become the second commercial craft to begin resupplying the International Space Station, as SpaceX began doing last year.

Up until about 15 minutes before the 5 p.m. scheduled launch, all was going smoothly. Then NASA officials abruptly scrubbed, saying a line that connects the pad to the second stage of the rocket had disengaged.

It was disappointing as well for tourists who'd flocked to the roads and beaches around Wallops with high hopes of watching a medium-lift rocket take off.

Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to make eight resupply missions to the space station. The plan is to make those missions out of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops.

Virginia leaders hope successful launches will lure other commercial space business – and high-paying, high-skilled jobs – to the commonwealth and turn MARS into one of the best commercial spaceports in the country.

Wednesday's launch was not a resupply flight, but Orbital's first attempt to test the Antares, with a simulated Cygnus cargo spacecraft attached.

It was also the first test of a new launch pad, support facilities and infrastructure at MARS, built at a cost of $145 million.

The Antares must complete a successful rocket test flight, then a demonstration flight. In the demonstration flight, an actual Cygnus craft must berth successfully with the space station.

Beneski said he didn't know if a premature separation of an umbilical is a common occurrence on such launches.

"But things like this are not unexpected," Beneski said. "We're a new launch pad. A new rocket. We'll soldier forward."